


Spy Chronicles

by ACPL



Series: Twinkler, Archer, Soldier, Spy [1]
Category: DCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-16 00:47:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21262343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ACPL/pseuds/ACPL
Summary: How Natalia Romanova Came To Be Natasha Romanoff aka An Account of the Years Between Leaving the Red Room And Becoming an Avenger.So far the timeline's set but no plans are made.[Perfunctory disclaimer of all rights belonging to their respective owners.]





	1. The Terrifying Freedom of Choice

The bell on the town's clock-tower chimed four times, then a different one tacked off eleven. The sound vibrated through the night air, each chime a rusty nail in the young woman's mind.

She had an hour to get to her check point two towns over, to be picked up and taken back.

Good thing she wasn't planning on making it.

The air on the other side of the alley where she has been working on becoming one with the centuries-old wall for the past thirty minutes moved and the knot in her stomach loosened almost imperceptibly. She let out a breath that materialised in front of her into a misty cloud.

Now it wasn't just the air moving, which she _felt_ more than anything else; the shadows were moving too.

The knot loosened slightly again and she drew the air in eagerly, eyeing the spot where the darkness was slightly more pronounced.

"I want in," she said, the foreign words tripping on her tongue.

A huff of breath sounded from the shadows and a figure emerged, clad in dark trousers and a jacket, taking the hood off to reveal a face that wore a humourless smile.

"You were the one who wanted to meet here," the newcomer said in Russian, eyes taking in the alley. "Inside would be a much preferred option."

"I want in," she repeated, this time more firmly. She has made her decision. It was the only way.

Sharp eyes narrowed and zeroed in on her. She watched the head incline to the side and lips curve into a shadow of a smile.

"Picked up a new language?"

The distant bell chimed once for quarter past and Natalia no longer cared. She sneered impatiently.

"Take me to your father," she switched to match her companion's Russian, mostly because her berth in Arabic was pretty much exhausted three words in. "I wish to become a part of the League."

It felt good to speak the words. Liberating, even. The knot around her stomach let off some more. No more Red Room. Anything but the Red Room. The GRU had little interest in investing in the KGB's secret pet project, though they had no reservations about offhandedly reaping its benefits as they saw fit. _While they_ _could_, she could almost hear. Natalia had absolutely no interest and more reservations than fit her life. She knew the League's reputation; it was one of the reasons she was standing here, now. But sometimes it wasn't about choosing the lesser of two evils. Sometimes it was simply about the choice itself.

The eyes that were light hazel and hid a cheeky spark when the hood came off were now steely and as grey as the clouds above, heavy and dangerous. And the spark was no longer cheeky; it was a lightning indicator. And it was angry.

The younger woman sneered and Natalia almost took a step back under the piercing eyes that were suddenly so full of fury.

"The League does not give second chances, Natalia," she spat out in English and the venom in her voice made the redhead weaver, pushing her a step back. "You will not find there what you seek. And my father has killed people for far less than wasting his time."

The knot around Natalia's stomach tightened beyond its original grip and she almost choked. Her insides grew cold. This was not how it was supposed to go.

This was not how this was supposed to go _at all_.

"It's _my choice_," she spat back after she caught her breath, taking a step forward. The cold that clasped her body transformed into flame, blue and freezing and roaring.

This was not how this was supposed to go. She has made her choice.

"You are welcome to it," the younger woman she thought her ally, her _friend_, just minutes ago shrugged indifferently, eyes distant and cool. "I have made mine. Any League Member you cross paths with is to collect you and deliver you to the nearest GRU station." Her eyes flickered to the clock-tower before she delivered her final blow. "_Alive_. Starting two minutes from now."

Natalia was suspecting her body was about to go to shock. She knew the symptoms too well; been through it more times than anyone, including herself, cared to count.

She wanted the cold fire inside her to spill, to explode, to tear the other woman into pieces with its blaze.

"If you go now and wire a car, you can make Hallein on time and on your own," distant voice echoed in her skull and she turned on her heel and ran, ran until the frozen air was cutting her lungs with the same force the fire was burning her from the inside, until nothing but hollow emptiness remained.

She stopped.

There were trees.

It was way past midnight.

She was alone.

She fell to her knees and sat back.

There was no going back now.

There was no one else.


	2. By The Coast

The last sunrays of the day reflected across the bay and covered the blackened walls in orange light. There were barely fifteen minutes of daylight left before the night fell.

Natalia heaved the mattress up with the last steps and kicked it unceremoniously into the least battered room she found during her initial scan of the complex. Not many people came to the Kupari's bay these days and those who did usually stayed well away from this building.

The mattress got a final push and bounced slightly off the room's corners by the window. Before this final touch, Natalia has already scavenged a box that could quite easily pass for a gutted chest of drawers, a few rugs to cover the floor, an almost-clean basin and a sturdy table to put in front of the door.

Now that she's made the distance and got from Austria to the Dalmatian coast, she was no longer _running_. Now, she was _living_ on the run. She scanned her new home with some satisfaction of a half-a-day's job well done. Really, the only problem was the box. Or rather the fact that it was almost completely empty. A few cans, water bottles, half a loaf of bread and some wayward apples she picked in Dubrovnik on the way here. The blanket was a loot off a train station cafe in northern Italy and has served her well so far, as did the hoodie she grabbed while passing a group of teenagers in...well, somewhere where there were teenagers. A gun with a half-empty clip, two knives and the Widow bites. A lock-picking set and a wad of cash. There was a _lot_ you could do with such an assortment, but sometimes a lot wasn't quite enough.

The Red Room didn't believe in personal possession on principle – and what would a half-sentient weapon need anything for, anyway – but over the course of the last year, Natalia managed to set up a few low-key pick-up sites with a bare minimum of equipment. She humoured the thought as she was passing the Swiss-French border, but decided not to tempt fate in such way just yet. Not until she assessed the situation properly, anyway.

The orange on the walls gave way to cold grey and night crept into the room, leaving everything looking even more battered than it was. Natalia's mind rebelled. She was not good at standing still without purpose – didn't _know_ how to stand still without a purpose. She needed a plan. A long-term goal and some short-term options. Objective and means.

_Stay alive for as long as humanly possible,_ she thought. As far as long-term goals go, this one was a decent one.

In matters of short-term planning, that meant obtaining things.

_Money._

_Weapons._

_Food._

_Medical supplies._

_Information._

_A base._

_Identity._

She winced at the last one and drew a mental line over it. It was thick and definite at first, but after a few moments she amended it to a rather slimmer one and put the item in the back-burn box.

Base got checked off next and she scanned the room again. Her eyes hit the former chest and she made an inventory again.

Information got underlined with red ink her mind pulled out enthusiastically and Natalia stretched. It _was_ possibly the most crucial – and certainly most useful – item on the list, but she was beat and if there was something urgent she ought to know, it would undoubtedly come knocking. The other side of the stick that held _information_ had _money _and_ weapons_ written all over it. That should be easy. Dubrovnik was just a few kilometers away and while the war ended nearly a decade ago, if Natalia knew one thing about wars, it was that they were never _really_ over for as long as they were profitable. And they were _always_ profitable.

* * *

Morning found her splayed across the ancient mattress and she laid still for a few moments, listening to the sounds that surrounded her. Bar the distant swishing of the waves, an occasional seagull and creaks of the old building as it slowly heated with the day, she was alone. The sunrays tickled her face and she felt strangely empty and warm at the same time. The springs in the mattress dug into her as she shifted and she took a deep breath before closing her eyes again. The sharp pressure felt familiar, yet unlike anything they had in the Red Room and unlike anything she could actually _recall_. Discarding the thought, she stretched indulgently and rolled out of the makeshift bed, grabbing an apple as she went.

Today was simple. Today was the day with a plan.

Two hours later, she was sizing up the streets of Dubrovnik and carefully investing some petty cash in finding out where the big money was. A passing ambulance shortly derailed her attention and she picked up her steps in the same direction.

Three people ran out of it when it stopped in front of a building a few streets away and she made quick work of the door, grabbing the spare medical bag and stuffing it with as much additional equipment as it would hold. Then she hopped out and froze, reaching back again and grabbing a sheet that laid on the stretcher, wrapping the red monstrosity in. There was such thing as unwanted attention.

Medical supplies got checked off, but now she had a rather impractical bundle to deal with.

"Opljačkati liječnike nije baš pametno," a voice sounded behind her and she turned to see a middle-aged man watching her with curiosity. She got the gist of his question, but didn't trust her Serbian to carry her through a conversation in Croatian without being made. She shrugged and started walking away.

"Trebaš li pomoć?"

He moved to catch up with her, clearly unrepelled.

"Ne," she replied curtly. "Hvala."

"Izgledate kao netko kome treba pomoć."

She made a decision and turned to a deserted alley. He followed eagerly, without hesitation.

It was a quick work – a rapid succession of hits that was so deeply ingrained in her that her brain never even registered they happened. One to the larynx to prevent him from screaming that landed long before he realised he should followed by a much heavier one below his ribcage. He went down like a sack of flour and Natalia stepped out of the alley back onto the larger street, turning the corner back the way she came. A small body collided with hers and tumbled a little.

"Oprostite," the little girl blurted, her eyes brown and wide but her attention already halfway back to her previous task. Natalia stepped off again and tumbled a little herself a few strides in.

"Tata? Tata što se dogodilo?"

Natalia's legs took the wheel and she was gone before the panicked cry for help could reach her.

* * *

The next evening, she was sitting at the very back of a musty bar. The winter here was nothing like the winter back in Russia, but the night still pushed people from their habitual seats out on the pavement in front of the cafe to the somewhat stale inside, where the cigarette smoke hung in heavy clouds under the ceiling and distorted the light.

People came and went.

Mostly they came and stayed, but fewer left the back room than the main room, that was for sure. As far as Natalia knew, _no one_ left the back room in the past two hours. She sunk lower into her seat. The television mounted up the wall was playing Greek musical videos at least ten years old.

The local mob was, to her endless disappointment, barely a mob at all. She slipped into the back room after closing time and helped herself to all the 9mm boxes she could find – which was exactly two and a half. There was a rather impressive collection of butterfly knives and a box of watches she refrained from nicking after a short consideration. Some papers were scrambled under the glasses and bottles on one of the tables, but there was nothing interesting.

Natalia was not raised to think small.

The Black Widow was not _conditioned_ to think small.

And Dubrovnik was small, she mused as she made her way back to the coast.

It was time to move.


End file.
